The Workshop took place on 23 September as a side event to the industry fair Husum WindEnergy 2010 and offered the more than 100 attendees an insight into the experiences gained from the planning, construction and operation of the first German offshore wind farm off the German coast.

The test site alpha ventus is the first offshore wind farm build far offshore in a 45 km distance to the island Borkum and which is installed in water depths of 30 meters.

Jörg Kuhbier, chairman of the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation’s board of Directors gave an overview of the long history of the test site, and the many challenges faced during the evolution and the implementation of the project.

Christian Dahlke, head of the division in the authorizing Agency BSH (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie), identified both strengths and weaknesses of the German approval procedure for offshore wind farms in the EEZ. Wilfried Hube, project leader of the DOTI consortium, the operator of alpha ventus, presented his experiences with the project team and pointed out the logistical challenges of the first German test site.

Finally, Norbert Giese (REpower) and Félix Debierre (Areva Wind) – the two representatives of the applied wind energy turbines in the test site – presented experiences which have been gained during project realization as well as technical data.

The concluding presentation was given by Tim Meyer Jürgens from TSO transpower (now TenneT). He highlighted the challenging grid connection of alpha ventus. It was the very first which was crossing the national park Wadden Sea.

In the evening of the day of the alpha ventus workshop, the German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation organized an official get-together on the “MS Greundiek”. Many representatives from POWER cluster and the offshore wind community followed the invitation and took the chance to exchange views in a relaxing atmosphere on board.